Blogging Against Racism, better late than never

[adiva_calandia]

It's easy to identify prejudices in another's work, though -- that's why we have editors, because it's too hard to find our own problems in our own work. Which is why, I think, the representation problems in Milliways go largely unnoticed. It's our work. Last night, Coalhouse Walker from Ragtime entered and summed it up: You travel beyond the reach of the sun, to whatever world lies beyond, and it's full of white people.

I'm as guilty of it as everyone else. I was thinking this morning as I walked back from getting coffee, composing this in my head, Why didn't I cast Epimetheus as Greek? Well, because I'm playing off Prometheus' PB, who's white, and whose music partner is white. So why is Prometheus white?

For that matter, why are all of the mythical, seperate-from-general reality characters in Milliways white? The only exceptions I can come up with off the top of my head are Coyote and, on occasion, Raven (varadia talked about that a lot). Why are these pups that are half personal canon white? Why did I assume Tom would be white? Why are none of my pups in The Wasteland non-white?

I don't feel that I can use the excuse that I'm white, and that I therefore can't write a non-white perspective. I'm female and I write guys fine. I'm straight and I write lesbian okay. I'm young and I write middle-aged or immortal okay.

And to be fair to myself, I play two non-white characters: Carmela Rodriguez and Nirupam Singh. But I still come back to that question -- why are the characters I create white?

Not like I'm going to change my PB selection on Epimetheus and Tom and Russ and Journey all of a sudden, but it's worth keeping in mind when I write.

Comments

[buongiornodaisy.livejournal.com]

I like Michael! ;_; I don't like that he's yet another example of "black men = deadbeat dads," but I like his character regardless.

Not enough to play him though. :P

I think this is probably more a commentary on the media than anything else. There just aren't enough non-white characters around, and when they are around they tend to be stereotypical or not interesting--though, then again, "interesting" depends on the person. Just because I, say, don't find Michael interesting enough to play in a RP setting doesn't mean somebody else does.

Which begs the question: why don't more people find non-white characters interesting to play? I think, for me, it has nothing to do with their race and more to do with how they are as a person. And I have the dual "how interesting are they as people/how similar are they to me, cosmetically" issue going on, which really slims down the characters I might pick from. Because, sadly, there aren't that many. I have tons of white characters to choose from. Not many non-whites to choose from.

[adiva_calandia]

Excellent point. I . . . have other stuff to say about it, but my brane is starting to hurt from all this.

I think media is getting better -- Jin and Sun are awesome characters, and as discussed in the other posts, Heroes is making some steps in the right direction. I feel like there's still a dearth in written fiction, though -- or at least in fantasy/sci-fi, which is what I read the most of.

[buongiornodaisy.livejournal.com]

Heh, well, the canons and genres I'm dabbling in right now? Lilly white. Oh, so one of my canons made a concession towards race and made the one character who's had more regenerations than the Doctor (Felix Leiter) black, but heaven knows that might not be the case in the next movie (he might, for all I know, be Asian in the next film--as he has gone from being young in one film to middle-aged and married in the next). But the other canon has deliberately kept non-whites out of the show. (And the other canon, I have no idea why there aren't any non-whites in it given that its predecessor was rife with non-white extras.)

So basically I'd like to see more non-white s00per seekrit agents pls. Preferably one with better dialogue. *eyes Felix warily*

[adiva_calandia]

Jeffrey Wright. <3333

Wait, which canon was rife with non-white extras?

[buongiornodaisy.livejournal.com]

Shaun of the Dead?